|
|
What is Asthma?
|
What is Asthma? | Triggers: Know Your Troublemakers
Working With Your Doctor | Controlling Episodes
Help Your Medicines Help You | Kinds of Asthma Medicines
Live Better and Feel Better
First Facts:
Asthma is a lung disease. It causes trouble with breathing, and this trouble usually happens in episodes, sometimes called "attacks."
Asthma is not contagious.
Asthma can be controlled or managed, but not cured.
When uncontrolled, asthma can be disabling. It is seldom fatal, but unfortunately the death rate is rising.
Who gets asthma?
Asthma affects over 13 million adults and children in the United States. Anybody can get it at any age. But it tends to run in families. If you have close relatives with asthma, you are more likely to have it too.
What happens in an asthma episode?
When you have trouble breathing because of asthma, the problem is in the airways of your lungs. The airways become narrow because:
The muscles around them tighten.
Their inner linings swell.
Extra mucus clogs smaller airways.
Breathing gets harder as you try to force air through the narrower airways. The air you breathe may make a wheezing or whistling sound, and you may cough or spit up mucus.
Are asthma episodes dangerous?
Episodes may be mild or severe. Most often they are mild and the airways will open in a few minutes to a few hours. However, some asthma episodes last much longer and some are very serious and need immediate treatment.
By learning what you can do to help your asthma, you can have fewer and milder episodes. It will be helpful if you have a close family member or friend who can read this book with you and will know how to help you prevent and control asthma episodes.
Your normal lungs
Air comes into your body through your nose and mouth. Then it goes through your windpipe into all your airways. The air reaches the tiny air sacs deep in your lungs, where oxygen gets into your blood. You breathe out stale air.
Your lungs in asthma
You have trouble moving air through your lungs because your airways become narrow as the muscles in their walls tighten and the airway walls swell up. The swollen walls give off extra mucus which clogs the narrowed airways.
|
Taking Control "I began having asthma a couple of years ago before I started high school. I couldn't understand what was going on, and it scared me a lot. It still does sometimes.
I'll be sitting in a class and suddenly my chest is feeling tight. I can hear myself starting to wheeze, and I wonder if anybody else can hear it. I look at the clock and wonder if I can last through the whole class.
|
|
|
"There I was, gasping and trying to breathe and I couldn't hide it any longer."
|
Once I tried to wait too long and I created a scene. There I was, gasping and trying to breathe, and I couldn't hide it any longer. The teacher called the nurse, and she called an ambulance. I was so embarrassed! I dreaded facing my classmates again. At the hospital, they got things under control and I went home. I talked the whole thing over with my best friend, and I realized I had to find a better way to handle my asthma than to sit there and let things happen to me.
|
|
Then I talked it over with my doctor at my next visit. I'm taking medicine every day to help keep my airways open and prevent trouble from starting, and it's helped a lot. But there are still times when my asthma starts up. The doctor gave me some instructions for those times, like taking some additional medicine and relaxing. She said I have to take control early, no matter where I am, and not wait until things get bad. She gave me a peak flow meter to help monitor my asthma.
Now I've worked out a plan with my teachers at school and the school nurse. They know if I feel an asthma episode starting, I'm going to quietly leave the class and go to the nurse's office. She'll give me a place to relax and take my medicine. It hasn't happened yet, but I feel better just knowing I can control the situation if it does.
|
|
|
"I've also found out that controlling my asthma means I can do things I thought I had to give up."
|
Maybe not worrying about it, and being more relaxed in class is helping to prevent a lot of trouble. I'm learning more about my asthma now, like what gets it started- like running or walking fast in cold weather, or hanging out in a smoky room. Avoiding those things is another way I can help myself. My family helps too.
|
|
I've also found out that controlling my asthma means I can do things I thought I had to give up. I was a pretty good swimmer before I started having asthma. My doctor thinks I can swim again, and the coach of the school swim team said two of the other team members have asthma. I still wish my asthma would just go away as suddenly as it came. And it still feels scary when an episode seems to be starting up. But I'm beginning to feel that I can handle it and that I can do just about everything I want to do. That's a good feeling."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Researchers at the Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, University of Washington are seeking volunteers, 18 to 59 year olds to participate in a study about the causes of asthma. Compensation is provided for participation. Volunteers must be diagnosed with asthma by a physician, capable of exercise on a treadmill, and have no other major health problems.
|
|
For more information...
|
|
Seeing the Sun Rise from Mount Rainier
